


To sleep is to dream

by Wrathofscribbles



Series: Devil's in the details [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28490010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathofscribbles/pseuds/Wrathofscribbles
Summary: and to dream... well.  That's just a nightmare.
Series: Devil's in the details [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2086893
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WindupKuponut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindupKuponut/gifts).



> Reminder that I don't own Final Fantasy VII or any of its content/characters. I simply play in the sandpit Square Enix created.
> 
>  **Note this is set during Zack's time in the Nibelheim lab.** While details of experimentation and body horror are minor, please keep that in mind prior to reading.

Used to be he could lay his head on a pillow and snooze in the span of 10 breaths while under Shin-Ra's roof. Beyond that, out on the field or in the city (and _especially_ in the slums), some indescribable part of _rest_ had to be sacrificed so he could sleep light. Be ready for trouble at a moment's notice when everyone and their dog were a potential threat with _"property of Shin-Ra"_ all but stamped on his clothes and in the glow of his eyes.

Used to be he'd rarely dream, except for some _breathtaking_ "what the fuck is this" exceptions. Like that time he apparently made out with Aerith and woke up in the middle of an identity crisis because she was cute but... not _that_ cute? Also: that sudden realisation of his own bisexuality whacking him over the head with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Go figure. Or that time Tseng morphed into a Migar Zolom and Zack cut its head off, only for two more to spawn from the stump, wearing the faces of Reno and Rude. Heavy-handed message from his better sense telling him never to trust the Turks? You betcha. Or that time he saw Cloud, older and worn but unmistakably happy, hoisting a little girl up onto a lacquered bar and poking her on the nose. "Maybe don't go throwing _materia_ at bullies next time, 'kay, Marlene?" He'd said, and Zack had jerked awake so hard he fell out his bunk, skin prickling with cold sweat.

Now though? Now sleep evades him. The natural, restful kind. He wakes groggy and he conks out groggy from the shit they pump him full of. Hours crawl by suspended in his mako tank, awake and aware and helpless, unable to break the glass while Cloud contorts and screams and _bleeds_ under Hojo's hands. Days crawl by in agony's haze after it's his turn with the scalpel, mako burning through blood and energy reserves to heal the wounds they leave him with, to right the wrongs they leave internally.

"For science," Hojo says, with that sinister grin of his, "such _fascinating_ specimens." He's full of shit and Zack knows it. He's just a sadistic fuck pissed off they broke his favourite toy when Cloud chucked Sephiroth down the reactor.

Now, when he does dream, they're nightmares. Of being cut down and cut open by Masamune. Of Genesis slipping past his guard and burning him alive. Angeal and his stupid death wish and code of honour and mother _fucking hypocrisy_. Hojo pulling him apart and gluing his eyes open just to watch Cloud die. Aerith kneeling in prayer, smiling at him as the light leaves her eyes. Cloud, that older version of him, broken and bloody on a crumbling rooftop, black feathers falling around him. The world ending in a blaze of green lightning -

**W h o a r e y o u ?**

The question clangs through him, shoots ice down his spine. He spins to face the speaker, but shadows smother him from all sides, clamp down tight round his arms and wrench his shoulders back. They curl up his throat and stick to his jaw and pry his mouth open.

**W h o a r e y o u ?**

A multitude of voices layered on top of one another, everyone he's ever known. His parents. His Grandma. The girl he used to catch toads with. The owner of his favourite takeaway place. Angeal. Cissnei. Cloud. Kunsel. The little ninja in training (Yuffie?) -

And that first one - the original one. All sandpaper growl and gravel tones, dangerous if ever he's heard such a thing before.

 _Go fuck yourself,_ his immediate response, thought rather than said when shadows pull harder and his skin splits right at the corners of his mouth, scream bubbling up his throat. He isn't stupid by any means, and his Ma taught him right - always be cautious of the unknown, and never give your name to a faceless one. Not when they carry such weight, and not with all kinds of unsavoury magic afoot in the world.

Pain explodes in his head. Actually _inside_ his head. Like he'd cracked his skull open and let a behemoth chew on it -

Zack wakes, once again, in the lab. _Who are you?_ a question he's carved into the glass in his sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**W h o a r e y o u ?**

It's a question posed to him on repeat for the next week - or his closest approximation of it. He hears it over the wheeze of his own laboured breathing when he's on the table. He hears it in the eerie silence when Cloud's too exhausted to so much as spit, let alone kick and scream and bite and swear up a storm in the Nibel tongue. He hears it as a silken purr when he manages to grab a lab tech and snap his neck in a moment of careless proximity. It haunts his dreams and echoes in his nightmares and it just won't _stop_. Not even when he jokes _(pleads)_ with Hojo for the drill again.

**W h o a r e y o u ?**

Not _"who am I?"_ which, impossible as it might seem, makes him think it isn't actually his brain asking the question at all, but something else. _Someone_ else. Someone else damn determined to get an answer, judging by the random dives through his past.

_He_ sure as shit doesn't need to remember his own name, or the nicknames his Ma gave him, or what his old friends called him. He doesn't need to remember his job history and career path and how he wound up in this mess. He _definitely_ doesn't need to remember the sting of Gen's betrayal, the horror of Angeal's, the weary moment of resignation he'd experienced when staring into Sephiroth's eyes as Masamune slid through his body with sickening ease. If _he_ doesn't need to remember... who does?

So he starts getting creative with his answers. _"A pain in the ass", "your worst nightmare", "Ifrit's fiery nutsack", "a backwater town's poster boy to stunning looks and good smarts"_. He deliberately pulls away from any self-doubt he'd felt up 'til now, shies away from _"nobody's hero"._ If he's got a battle brewing in his own head, no need to give the foe any ammo, right?

And all the while, his body changes. First it's the nails, their accelerated growth a casual observation made with ten brief flashes of pain, blood welling where they're cut too far back. Then it's the hair, going from spiky hedgehog to slicked back mane to absolute rat's nest of a mess (his Ma'd have his hide for sure if she saw). Then it's the healing - bones mending within the hour and organ damage in half a day (and _boy_ do they take _great delight_ in testing that one out). But even that can't fix how they've fucked up his left arm - veins shot through with black - as if the flesh and bone from elbow to fingers is diseased and dying. An oddity, they say. Unexpected.

_Absolutely fascinating,_ and that's the goddamn worst thing to be in a lab full of freaks.

**W h o a r e y o u ?**

The voice comes back again as it always does, countless hours into his torment, just as Cloud's screams cut off. And... this time they don't start up again. This time he doesn't move of his own accord when they push and pull at his body, jostle him around like a ragdoll. Not even a twitch. _Cloud!_

_Zack Fair_ , he says in reply. Honest and broken and so full of hate his head pounds in time to his heartbeat, staring at the white labcoats surrounding his friend. He'll get them out of this hellhole even if it kills him. Cloud, at least, will not die a fucking test subject.

Surprise bubbles through him, alien and unwarranted (he's definitely gone off the deep end now, too much trauma), and then something... shifts. Inside him. Almost a physical sensation. Like how a cat stretches before it sprawls out in a beam of sunshine.

**And what is it you want most of all, Zack Fair?**

_Freedom._

The thing in his head, the presence, the _someone_ , laughs.

**And if I said I could help you, for a small fee?**

_I'd answer "where the fuck do I sign?"_

**Hmm. Then we'd best get started on a plan, hostie.**

_Hostie? Who the hell are you?_

Laughter, again, and the dizziness of his memories being spun around as one might with a roulette wheel. Right before his own voice comes back to him in a caustic retort: _"your worst nightmare"._


End file.
